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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

You cannot achieve all that you expect to achieve in life - this is part of the condition of being a human being within a single vessel. There was a project which I know in my heart I was the catalyst for. The person I relayed that idea to has run off with it and by all appearances they will do a good job of it. It will be something big, something everyone will enjoy. And perhaps I should just be thankful for that brief part I played in dusting off it's jacket and putting it under the right person's nose. Let us pray it goes well. And that is that.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Sometimes you are the last one to the party.... I watched L'Ultimo Bacio last week and oh what a surprise it was - how had I missed that one? Fantastic film. It reminded me of a pool party I once went to in Fregene. I should put those images on the blog. Most amusing! I would like to see more Italian films made by Gabriele Muccino. I really hope he makes films for Italians by Italians rather than Hollywood movies. BUY IT HERE

It is getting cold here in Sydney and I'd love a lovely dressing gown and a nice pair of pyjamas. Actually, I have my own pyjamas that I made for Le Noeud Papillon, but I'd be interested to see some new designs. But if anyone knows where to buy great dressing gowns or pyjamas, leave a comment below with a website link!

I found these illustrations of Beau Brummell on Wikipedia. It is interesting to note that for a man of such sartorial elegance, that there are very few historical drawings, paintings or sketches that you can find on the internet. Brummell is credited as being the 'grandfather' of the modern suit and tie and is considered the apex of men's sartorial elegance. The word 'dandy' is synonymous with Brummell, and he is referred to consistently in modern culture, such as in Billy Joel's 'It's Still Rock N Roll' lyrics.

Hunter is one of the owners of Tasmanian Rain, a spring (correction - natural RAIN) water brand coming out of.... you guessed it.... Tasmania, Australia. Is there another Tasmania on the map? Yes there is, but we won't go into that. That's an inside joke if you are Australian. If not, ask an Australian. Hunter is wearing a seersucker bow tie out of Holland And Sherry Seersucker - that was a limited edition - there are none left now.

Let me tell you about this man who runs A Suitable Wardrobe, the online blog which brings hundreds of thousands of men into contact with information that they previously would never have had access to - he's a mensch! I learnt that word at a friend's shabbas. I'm not Jewish, but occasionally I like to use a little of their parley.

Furthermore, when no one would listen to what I was doing with bow ties and silks, Will gave me a leg up by writing about my silks, shapes and styles. There are so few people who will do that in your life. People who will give you a chance when no one else 'will' (no pun intended). Thank you Will, you have not only helped me but you have become a tremendous help to men around the world looking for information on all things to do with their wardrobe. And Will, if you are out there, thanks for the Forbes mention too!

Firstly, in keeping with my previous observation, it still holds true that you can't find a great film without a bow tie somewhere in it. The list just keeps going on. The clothes in this film are also phenomenal. The choice of hats, shirts, ties, jackets. From the Producer to Fellini's character played by Marcello Mastroianni. BUY IT HERE

How can I tell you about my love for this film? It's not possible. Visually, maybe. But not with words. This film is so spectacular that it goes beyond words. Where every frame is a piece of art, where the subtle nuances of each character find expression in every scene. It seriously looks at the human condition but with such playfulness, in a manner in which only an Italian could do. I love this film with my whole heart. There is nothing more to say.

Monday, May 23, 2011

We were presented with a problem - the priest wanted us to design a new collar which would allow the collar ends to butt up to one another. Then he wanted the collar to be 1.5cm higher than our standard windsor and to fall short by 1.5cm at the base. We have not heard back from him, but we think he's happy.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

This is a book worthy of a movie remake. In my opinion Gatsby is driven by characters whereas Tender Is The Night is driven by characters and plot. A moving, flowing beast that traverses continents and is very personal to Fitzgerald. This is often the case with a writer's best work - Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' and 'War and Peace' were both personal, as was Hemingway's 'Fiesta'.

Excerpt from 'Tender Is The Night' by F Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 18

Although the Divers were honestly apathetic to organised fashion, they were nevertheless too acute to abandon contemperaneous rythm and beat - Dick's parties were all concerned with excitement and a chance breath of fresh night air was the more precious for being experienced in the intervals of excitement.

The party that night moved with the speed of slapstick comedy. They were twelve, they were sixteen, they were quartets in separate motors bound on a quick odyssey over Paris. Everything had been forseen. People joined them as if by magic, accompanied them as specialists, almost guides, through a phase of the evening, dropped out and were succeeded by other people, so that it appeared as if the freshness of each one had been husbanded for them all day. Rosemary appreciated how different it was from any party in Hollywood, no matter how splendid in scale. There was, among many diversions, the car of the Shah of Persia. Where Dick had commandeered this behicle, what bribery was employed, these were facts of irrelevance. Rosemary accepted it as a new facet of the fabulous, which for two years had filled her life. The car had been built on a special chassis in America. It's wheels were of silver, so was the radiator.....

Saturday, May 21, 2011

What I like about Tibbs Deville is that they are taking shoes and shoe designs generally used for around the house and dinner parties, and making them for the street. I think these are very chic and worth taking a look at.

....Surrounded by Warhols, well-thumbed books of romantic poetry and midnight-blue fabric swatches for his next suit, sits Bryan Ferry. Having been the byword for suave frontmen since Roxy Music first strutted on stage in 1972, it's unsurprising we want to talk to Ferry about his taste for tailoring. ...........

Below are some of Ferry's observations:

Anderson & Sheppard seem to have got it right with me. I love the tradition of tailoring and think it is something to support. It's like going to bookshops rather than buying something on an iPad.

The great thing about black tie is that it is just a uniform. You just get one that fits. I don't have any tricks - it's very straightforward. I do sometimes wear a belt with black tie, which is sacrilege to most people as it's better if you have braces. I have worn cummerbunds on occasion but they're really out of fashion now. I don't wear studs much - that's my revolutionary approach.

What I do like is a small bow tie. One of the curses of men's clothing is as soon as you find something you like, they stop making it. They always say something like, "Oh, we can't get that kind of grosgrain any more" or, "Oh, we've always made them this big and clown-sized". If you can afford to get two or more bow ties, I'd urge you to do it.

The bespoke process drives me mad. Because when people get it wrong, it's a drag. I love slipping into something ready-to-wear which fits. I don't have much time for fittings now. [Pause, smiles and adopts mocking voice] "He said rather grandly."

La Regle Du Jeu by Renoir is a stylish film. It's about a country house party and a shooting weekend - the clothes are fantastic. Everyone is dressing up for dinner and running around excited. There are intrigues going on. I like older movies - things in black and white always look more graphic and detached from reality in a way. Unless you go into real colour, like The Red Shoes, which is deliberately hyper-real and intense.

I like fabrics and tactility; going into tailors and having shirts made. The two I endorse are Sean O'Flynn on London's Sackville Street and Charvet in Paris is great. It's not cheap but I would rather have one great shirt than 12 that aren't so great. You feel you're supporting an empire that shouldn't crumble. I met the very lovely French woman who owns it once - I was with Issy Blow who had me roped in as an art director for a shoot in the Paris Ritz opposite. I needed some clothes so Issy swept in and got me this and that - including a dressing gown.

Manolo Blahnick pulls off a bow tie very well. I think a lot of us are very cowardly about not wearing bow ties during the day. The great journalist Robin Day always wore a bow tie and I thought he was very cool.

The drought is over. I have begun reading again. The first biography I read of Tolstoy was A N Wilson's which I bought on Amazon. At the time there was no 'The Last Station' and I could not find much information on Yasnaya Polyana. Wilson's bio was excellent in parts and brought so much of Yasnaya Polyana to life for me. I am hoping Bartlett will do just the same. One of my favourite vignettes from Wilson's bio is when Chertkhov witnesses Tolstoy swatting a mosquito... which horrified Chertkhov... which amused me. I don't remember whether they included this scene in The Last Station or not. If you are out there looking for work of Tolstoy's I have a good recommend, actually it was Baz Luhrmann who told me about it, and that is Sergei Bondarchuk's 'War and Peace'- which is wonderful viewing for this Anitpodean winter http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063794/.

As an after thought, there is something that probably does not get mentioned often enough - and that is the thread between Jesus, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr. Tolstoy followed Jesus, Gandhi studied Tolstoy and through Tolstoyanism found the path of passive resistance and Martin Luther said (I am paraphrasing dramatically as it was a quote I heard on a televised interview) that 'Jesus Christ lit up his life, and Gandhi gave him his path' (referring to the act of passive resistance).

I once had a girlfriend whose mother used to refer to me as 'a little Walter Mitty' and until I read the very famous short story I never really understood what she meant. In the final analysis I think her comments were more of an insult to her own daughter.... Walter Mitty's malaise is one that often happens to men who are henpecked! Regardless, here is that wonderful short story by James Thurber, published first in the New Yorker in 1939, which I assume is now out of copyright. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

by James Thurber

"We're going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. "We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We're going through!" The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he shouted. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. "The old man will get us through" they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of Hell!" . . .

"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind.

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't need overshoes," said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. "We've been all through that," she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer." He raced the engine a little. "Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?" Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. "Pick it up, brother!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.

. . . "It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan," said the pretty nurse. "Yes?" said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. "Who has the case?" "Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Mr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over." A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. "Hello, Mitty," he said. "We're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him." "Glad to," said Mitty.

In the operating room there were whispered introductions: "Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Mr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty." "I've read your book on streptothricosis," said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. "A brilliant performance, sir." "Thank you," said Walter Mitty. "Didn't know you were in the States, Mitty," grumbled Remington. "Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary." "You are very kind," said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. "The new anesthetizer is giving way!" shouted an intern. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" "Quiet, man!" said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. "That will hold for ten minutes," he said. "Get on with the operation." A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. "Coreopsis has set in," said Renshaw nervously. "If you would take over, Mitty?" Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. "If you wish," he said. They slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining . . .

"Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!" Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. "Wrong lane, Mac," said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. "Gee. Yeh," muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked "Exit Only." "Leave her sit there," said the attendant. "I'll put her away." Mitty got out of the car. "Hey, better leave the key." "Oh," said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.

They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to the garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling; they won't grin at me then. I'll have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. "Overshoes," he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.

When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him, twice, before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town-he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, cardorundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. "Where's the what's-its-name," she would ask. "Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

. . . "Perhaps this will refresh your memory." The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. "Have you ever seen this before?" Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. "This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80," he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge rapped for order. "You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?" said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. "Objection!" shouted Mitty's attorney. "We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. "With any known make of gun," he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand." Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. "You miserable cur!" . . .

"Puppy biscuit," said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. "He said 'Puppy biscuit'," she said to her companion. "That man said 'Puppy biscuit' to himself." Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A&P, not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. "I want some biscuit for small, young dogs," he said to the clerk. "Any special brand, sir?" The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. "It says 'Puppies Bark for It' on the box," said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first; she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. "Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?" Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

. . . "The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir," said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. "Get him to bed," he said wearily. "With the others. I'll fly alone." "But you can't, sir," said the sergeant anxiously. "It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman's circus is between here and Saulier." "Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump," said Mitty. "I'm going over. Spot of brandy?" He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. "A bit of a near thing," said Captain Mitty carelessly. "The box barrage is closing in," said the sergeant. "We only live once, Sergeant," said Mitty with his faint, fleeting smile. "Or do we?" He poured another brandy and tossed it off. "I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir," said the sergeant. "Begging your pardon, sir." Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming "AuprËs de Ma Blonde." He turned and waved to the sergeant. "Cheerio!" he said. . .

Something struck his shoulder. "I've been looking all over this hotel for you," said Mrs. Mitty. "Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?" "Things close in," said Walter Mitty vaguely. "What?" Mrs. Mitty said. "Did you get the what's-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What's in that box?" "Overshoes," said Mitty. "Couldn't you have put them on in the store?" "I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, "Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking . . . He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

These buttons have been photographed under a magnifying glass. They are silk covered linen shank buttons and regular shank buttons for evening jackets. Priced upon request. Contact us on bow@lenoeudpapillon.com .

Linen shank buttons are excellent because they sit closer to the jacket and don't have that drooping look that you sometimes get from a hanging shank button. These buttons are all made from our limited edition silks and are finished right here in Sydney, Australia.

It's funny that the hardest people to please are your own family. My own brother decided to get some shirts done. He needed button downs, half of them concealed, half dispalyed. Not happy with his sample shirt we cut him a second. He was particularly concerned about the length of his sleeves, not used to having a shirt that didn't bunch at the wrist. He wanted a third sample cut... but at the eleventh hour an armistice was reached and he was happy. We're happy because he's happy. I've also included an image of a grandpa collar I cut for myself.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Stefano is a pretty cool dude - and I'm 90% sure it's him. I met him through my cousin in Paris about four years ago. It was Marc Newson's Spaceship launch party on the day of my birthday in June at the Carreau Du Temple in the 3rd. I remember him wearing these vintage looking boots and a trench coat and he really had such great presence. Later on I saw him again when he dropped into a party I was part hosting on Boulevarde Barbes.